Mayor Bing To Present City Council With Budget Plan

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DETROIT (WWJ) - Mayor Dave Bing is expected to present another lean budget to Detroit City Council Tuesday, while also unveiling a five-year plan to wipe out a deficit that now stands at about $150-million.

WWJ’s Vickie Thomas reports many of those cuts will be to services and employee benefits.

With the $150-million budget deficit, Mayor Bing wants the city’s unions to cough up more concessions. City leaders say without them, an emergency financial manager could come in and dissolve union contracts all together.

Catherine Phillips with Michigan AFSCME Council 25 thinks the Mayor is just picking on the “little people.”

“The Mayor is trying to do away with our contract as well. That doesn’t really strike me too much because I believe, and this my personal belief, that Mr. Bing will probably end up being the emergency financial manager,” Phillips said. “He’s going to cut whether he’s mayor or whether he’s emergency financial manager. Knowing him, he’s coming after the little people again.”

Phillips said after agreeing to a three-year, 10 percent pay cut, the union is not willing to open up for more concessions.

Mayor Dave Bing’s $3 billion spending plan includes $200 million in cuts, and he will be asking unions for more concessions from the city’s 48 collective bargaining units.

Ed McNeil with Michigan AFSCME Council 25 thinks the city is asking for sacrifice from the wrong group of people.

“It’s not the employee’s who are screwing up the money. It’s the administration whose screwing up the money and going back to the employees to clean up the mess by them giving more and giving more,” McNeil said. “So, people need to know the real story about whats happening with their tax dollars and that’s vendor contracts. That’s where the taxpayers need to understand where there’s mismanagement, and where overall expenditures are happening.”

Stay with WWJ Newsradio and CBSDetroit.com for coverage of Tuesday’s budget presentation.